The corporate elite have their shit together.
We need their same level of class consciousness and solidarity.
While corporations theoretically compete with each other for market share and profits, when it comes to advancing their interests at the public expense, they know how to work together to further their interest to get things done.
Minneapolis-based US Bank, the fifth largest bank in the country, provides a case study in how corporate elites organize to stay in power.
To start with, corporate CEOs are united by an ideology that transcends their narrow interests. Bankers hate government regulation and often insist (contrary to historical facts of redlining, predatory lending, and reams of data amassed by advocates) that short-sighted government rules are the only thing preventing banks from carrying out their heartfelt desire to better serve low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
This ideology is not only reflected in the bank’s significant lobbying and political contributions. It is reflected in the very structure of its governance.
As US Bank explicitly states to its investors, the bank’s board of directors includes several executives who bring valuable experience on the challenges of operating in a “heavily regulated industry” — the CEOs of a healthcare technology company; a medical device company; two electric and gas companies.
US Bank Chairman and retired CEO Richard Davis serves on the board of Xcel Energy, which,“broadens his experience of overseeing management in an industry subject to extensive regulation,” according to his director’s biography on the website of Dow Chemical, another company where Davis is a board member.
To US Bank, clearly the government’s ability to regulate banks is directly related to its ability to regulate any industry. Essentially, “a regulation to one is a regulation to all.”
Web of Power
Although US Bank has operations in 26 states, Davis and US Bank consolidated their power in Minnesota where they can have the greatest influence. The board of directors includes CEOs from two other large Minnesota-based corporations, which are in businesses seemingly unrelated to banking — Ecolab, a seller of water and hygiene services, and Polaris, a maker of snowmobiles and ATVs.
As Board members, these CEOs of other corporations are invited in and made privy to US Bank’s most sensitive and proprietary information. These same CEOs are also on the boards of other companies and so have knowledge of those companies’ internal workings. In addition to being on the board of US Bank, Ecolab CEO Doug Baker is on the board of Minneapolis-based Target. Retired Medtronic CEO Arthur Collins is on the board of Cargill, another Minnesota company. And to close the circle, Cargill CEO David MacLennan is on the board of Ecolab, and Target CEO Brian Cornell was on the board of Polaris, until this year.
This interconnected web creates a sense of shared values among the CEOs and allows them to exert their power as a group to achieve their common goals. One way they do this is through organization like the Minnesota Business Partnership, which is made up of the CEOs from the state’s largest corporations and was deemed Minnesota’s “most powerful business group” by the Star Tribune.
The last four chairmen of the Business Partnership are the CEOs from US Bank, Ecolab, Polaris, and Cargill, and they all remain on the group’s Executive Committee, along with the CEOs of two of the other companies listed here, Target and Xcel. As noted above, the Ecolab and Polaris CEOs are also currently on the US Bank board.
The Minnesota Business Partnership’s legislative priorities include defeating efforts for paid sick days or a higher minimum wage, outsourcing more state and local services, and applying business principles to education, such as cutting costs by using less experienced teachers and making schools compete for students.
Work Hard, Play Hard
While the CEOs in this tightly-knit circle may express a distaste for government regulation, they do see a role for the public sector — to enhance their profits by turning public goods into sources of private profit.
In this context, the upcoming 10-day Super Bowl extravaganza is both a 10 day party to celebrate the wealth and power that this closed loop of corporate chieftains has amassed, and to increase those profits at public expense in the course of the party.
US Bank chairman Richard Davis and Ecolab CEO Doug Baker led the effort to get public financing to build a new Vikings stadium. Minnesota and Minneapolis taxpayers provided$498 million upfront. However, the city and state borrowed that money by issuing bonds, that they will have to pay back with interest over the next 30 years. So, the actual cost to taxpayers will be about $1.2 billion.
But this was only the beginning. Once they had secured public funding for the stadium, Davis and Baker immediately turned their attention to landing a Super Bowl. And then, once that was lined up, US Bank signed a deal to pay the Vikings $9 million a year for the stadium naming rights. This was a bargain price, considering that a 30-second ad during the last Super Bowl cost up to $5 million.
Ecolab, Polaris, and Medtronic then entered into 10-year strategic marketing partnerships with the Vikings. For Ecolab, this means having advertising and signage at the Ecolab Gate stadium entrance. It also means that Ecolab provides cleaning and sanitation products and services at the stadium. Polaris also received the naming rights for one of the stadium entrances, and operations crews drive Polaris utility vehicles around the stadium. To get to those gates, fans walk through Medtronic Plaza outside the stadium, where they can see the 160-foot long Viking ship replica
Minnesota taxpayers are also footing the bill for much of the Super Bowl. It’s still unclear exactly how much it will cost us, but last year’s Super Bowl in Houston received $30 million in taxpayer subsides. To land the Super Bowl, Minneapolis had to agree to numerous conditions, such as providing: free luxury hotel rooms for NFL executives; police escorts for team owners; and exemption from all state, county, and city taxes.
The Super Bowl corporate love fest is being presented as a huge economic benefit to Minnesota. However, most of the financial benefits will go to corporations, not workers, and much of it to the company’s out of state headquarters. For instance, workers who clean hotel rooms may get a few extra shifts or more tips, but no major wage increases or bonuses. Even though a national hotel chain may charge two or three times more than their usual price for a room, the hotel owners won’t double their staff’s wages. There is very little trickle down.
Davis and team have recruited 10,000 volunteers who will work a minimum of 4 to 6 hour shifts doing tasks such as greeting visitors at the airport and providing directions to people downtown during the 10-day corporate-palooza.
They will get a uniform and a “once-in-a-lifetime prize, the chance to be part of the Minnesota Super Bowl LII Host Committee’s Super Bowl festivities” but no access to the game itself and no money for their work.
Minnesotans for a Fair Economy
For the last seven years, unions and community organizations in the Twin Cities have been working together to research and understand the immense control that the corporate elite have on Minnesota’s economy, and to share this information with their members through popular education activities. Armed with this knowledge, the groups have realized the necessity of confronting corporate power and of developing new organizing methods and models to do so.
One of those way is through Minnesotans for a Fair Economy (MFE). With a traditional coalition, different groups come together to work on the same issue, which is often not the primary concern of those groups. Or we may see one organization, often a union, asking other groups to support their work out of solidarity. What MFE has been working to do is to look at the existing work of different organizations and to align their campaigns against common corporate targets.
Many groups have been organizing around US Bank in Minnesota, but each on their own issue. MN350 has targeted US Bank for its involvement in financing oil pipelines in alignment with a national indigenous led pipeline divestment movement. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union is organizing workers at US Bank. ISAIAH is demanding that US Bank divest from predatory payday lenders. The St. Paul Federation of Teachers is targeting US Bank for its corporate tax avoidance. SEIU Local 26 has made US Bank a focus of its last three contract campaigns because a large number of unionized janitors and security officers work at US Bank’s headquarters.
Once or twice a year, the groups in MFE have held a Week of Action along with a Leadership School in which dozens of leaders from the different groups learn about each other’s campaigns and participate in popular education activities aimed at developing a shared analysis of “Who Rules Minnesota. “
On a basic level, this strengthens relationships between organizations, something which seems even more important these days. On a deeper level, groups learn first-hand that “stronger together” is more than a cliché, by racking up victories that would be impossible by themselves, including:
· Take Action Minnesota passing state legislation to “Ban the Box” (prohibiting employers from including questions about a criminal record on job applications) and getting Target to ban the box on applications for all its stores in the U.S.
· The workers center CTUL (Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha) organizing janitors who were hired by cleaning companies to clean Target and other big box department stores, and helping them win a union contract — the first of its kind in the country.
· ISAIAH, Jewish Community Action, and Occupy Homes passing a statewide Homeowner’s Bill of Rights, to protect homeowners from unfair and abusive foreclosure practices.
· Take Action and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC) leading a coalition that defeated a Voter ID ballot initiative that would have restricted people of color’s access to vote.
· SEIU Healthcare Minnesota organizing 27,000 home care workers and winning a first contract.
· SEIU Local 26 winning significant improvements in wages, benefits, and working conditions for thousands of janitors and security officers.
· MN350 and allies convincing USBank to end “project construction financing for new oil and gas pipelines.”
Just in the last year, these organizations have led the successful campaigns to win paid sick days ordinances in Minneapolis and St. Paul and a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis.
While there is still much more to be done, the work in Minnesota can serve as a good starting model for the type of alignment necessary to take on the corporate power structure and companies like US Bank. Organizations seeking to protect the public good cannot afford to be any less united and strategic than the corporations who seek only their own profits at the public expense.